Council Reveal Further £2.6 Million Of Proposed ‘Horrendous’ Cuts

‘Horrendous’ cuts to Council services are on the horizon as proposals for the 2015/16 budget are put forward.

That was the message sent out by councillors this week ahead of the upcoming 2015/16 budget proposals published today on the Council website for the first time. Breaking from normal tradition the details are buried in this lengthy PDF rather than split per agenda item.

Councillors have predicted budget cuts of £45m over the next five years – however recent estimations indicate that cuts could reach up to £60m by 2018.

In a report due to go before the Executive Board next Tuesday, the proposed cuts for the next year will be presented to councillors. At presents the proposals are still ‘in principle’.

It has previously been estimated that cuts of £8.2m will have to be made for 2015/16, however it is now predicted that cuts could add up to around £13m.

In the report first seen publicly today, and not presented to the media yesterday, some details are given as follows of the £2,637,000 further proposed cuts are below:

• £1.1 million further cuts in Adult Social Care
• £209,000 saved via ‘Review of Family Centres’
• £164,000 in further ‘Management/Staff Reviews’
• £75,000 is listed as ‘Consider setting up a Libraries Trust’ which we understand involves further spinning out of libraries to local trust groups.
• £33,000 proposed saving via ‘Review Tourist Information Centre’.
• £16,000 savings via reviewing the opening times of the Contact Centre

The above savings are also based on an assumed increase of Council tax of 3% .

Lead Member for Policy, Finance, Performance and Governance, Malcolm King said: “We had been warned of one and a half percent shortfall. It’s now possible we are talking as high as four percent.

“We are taking the view to plan for the worst and hope for the best, but that’s looking like a hopelessly optimistic view. It’s a massive mountain and it’s now considerably higher.”

Cllr King went onto add that it is ‘getting more and more difficult to find the savings’.

It is estimated that the full extent of cuts for the next financial year will be unveiled in November.

The ongoing Council cuts have already resulted in the closure of Plas Madoc Leisure centre, a reduction in grass cutting and the handing over of Gresford Library to a Community Trust.

Speaking about the looming cuts to the 2015/16 budget, Council Leader Neil Rogers said: “There is further pressure on authorities across Wales.”

Cllr Rogers added: “We need to let the public know know there are tough challenges ahead.

During the Executive Board ‘Media Brief’ on Tuesday, an indication as to what the next proposed batch of cuts will be was given; with housing, adult social care and corporate customer services were mooted.

At the time of writing this report, the Executive Board documents have not been made public – therefore we are not aware of the next batch of proposed cuts. However we will be updating our report when the documents have been made public.

It is hoped that next week’s meeting will be the first one to be recorded and subsequently shown on Council TV. However we are told ‘at this point in time they plan to record it then publish it providing there are no major technical difficulties’. Instead the meeting will be put online for the public to view after the meeting.

Of course the Executive Board meeting will be open to the public as usual, so anyone who fancies popping down to the meeting – it will take place at 2pm on Tuesday in the Guildhall.